A student asked me if i know the flag he had drawn on his paper; he had drawn the well-known (battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia). I asked him how he knew about the flag and he said he just knew it. I suppose he knew that it was not something PC to draw.

Thursday, November 09, 2017

There is news that Warner Brothers and Amazon are in negotiations, along with the Tolkien estate, to create a new TV series based on Lord of the Rings. Is this a new adaptation (in which case the rights are not possessed by the estate) or a new story based on Tolkien source material? Why would Christopher Tolkien choose to collaborate? Or is he no longer in control of the estate?

What's to prevent Hollywood from adding even more SJW elements to this new LOTR story? More gay hobbits? More invented female warriors for girl power?

Apparently the concern I had about Stranger Things going in a PC direction of girl-power was justified. But then again
this may have been the plan of the Duffer brothers all along, with El. First they hook you then they feed you propaganda.

That the show received praise from a writer for The American Conservative should have sparked suspicion that all was not right? And even if SJWs, who might prefer their antifa wet dream that is Bushwick, are critical of the series for being too white or some other reason, it does not mean that "conservatives" should embrace the show as their own.

The actress who plays Eleven, Millie Bobby Brown, reminded me of a young Nathalie Portman in The Professional. It turns out that she is also a Jew. And then there's Paul Reiser and Winona Ryder and at least one other actor, Finn Wolfhard. What about the creators, the Duffer Brothers? Are they Jewish? One of them has married a staunch Jew.

More of a resonance with Talmudic Judaism than just the portrayal of outcasts, the nerds of Stranger Things? Will Eleven turn out to be a Super Pharisee? Another orphan girl with super powers who saves the day, like Rey of nuStar Wars? Are the Duffer Brothers engaging in more Pharasaical subversion of American pop culture, once again through 80s nostalgia, following the footsteps of Jar Jar Abrams? ("Hello fellow white people"?) Avoiding the sentimentalism of Steven Spielberg is not enough to make their show good.

A story that has the moral that one should do good, avoid evil, is not sufficient to make it a good American story, if what is "American" is understood as properly having a Christian facet, even if only implicit, like in the fantasy of Tolkien. What is the Divine component of Stranger Things, if there is one? How is the embodiment of evil in the Upside Down to be understood? Even if the series is a good riff of or homage to 80s horror and fantasy, this would not be a point in its defense, as much of that genre wasn't Christian either, even if some element of truth can be found in it.

The evil thing reminds me a bit of the smoke monster of Lost. Is there any connection between the two series? And how is it "evil," other than being destructive of life or causing death? (Is there an equivalence being made between science of sci-fi and magic of fantasy?)